


Reunion

by Lene3161



Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: Bittersweet Ending, Break Up, M/M, Moving On, POV James Bond
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-26
Updated: 2019-08-26
Packaged: 2020-09-27 05:10:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20402206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lene3161/pseuds/Lene3161
Summary: Q loves James, but he knew James couldn’t be trusted.





	Reunion

“I’m sure you’re wondering why I’ve invited you here, Bond,” Q said with a hesitant smile.

James raised one brow. Q had texted him ‘7 pm, my flat. Bring drinks’ yesterday. He’d been walking out of the meeting with Mallory that confirmed his status as a new trainer for the double-oh agents and had had to restrain a grin at the proof of his advances on Q finally working. He immediately bought Q’s favourite wine and expensive tea, and spent two hours agonizing over what suit to wear. In the end, he’d chosen his navy blue suit with a red tie and white shirt, because he knew it brought out his eyes, which Q had once said was his second-favourite part of James’ body.

“You’re right, Q. But then again, you always are.” James figured a little flattery wouldn’t hurt.

“Oh, don’t be daft. I’ve made plenty of foolish mistakes, as I’m sure you know.” Q nervously pushed aside a bit of chicken breast on his plate. He’d been cutting up his food instead of actually consuming it for the past fifteen minutes.

“Like me, for example.”

Q stiffened, ready to snap at him, but he let loose a gusty sigh at whatever expression he found on James’ face. He set his eating utensils down and took deep gulps of the wine, before he folded his hands primly on the table in front of him. He tried to look serious - and failed miserably. His slightly unfocused gaze and flushed face gave away how much the wine affected him.

“Let’s just get this over with so we can be out of our misery as soon as possible. James,” Q said, using his first name for the first time since he went back to MI6. “I’m not going to resume - whatever we had before your - jaunt.”

“Jaunt? Really, Q?” James was amused despite himself. Trust the Quartermaster to use such an archaic word.

Q continued on, ignoring James’ response, “I will not resume our arrangement. And I would be very much obliged if you would stop flirting with me.”

“I see.”

“I’m serious, James. I refuse to be your second cho-” Q clamped his mouth shut, his flush deepening. James could see him retreating into himself.

“Q, it’s not like that. I’m not wooing you because you’re a backup plan, or whatever sordid reason you imagined.”

“Aren’t I? You left Doctor Swann, and now you’ve come back to MI6, wanting the comfort of your old routine, and you think I’m part of that. What other reason would you have to approach me again?”

“Is it so hard to believe I have feelings for you?”

“Yes.” Q replied bluntly. “You left, after all. With another woman, no less. I’m sure you can see why I’m skeptical of whatever tendresse you proclaim to have.”

James’ fingers tightened around his wine glass. “It was a mistake. Q, I was - I was terrified when I realised just how deep my feelings went for you. I handled it badly, as you can see.”

“You don’t care for Doctor Swann at _all_, then?” Q sounded horrified. He gave James a fierce glare. “She’s not someone you actually love, but just someone you can forget things with.”

“No, Q, you’ve got it all wrong,” James’ voice cracked. Q truly thought the worst of him. Granted, it was only fair, as he had never given the Quartermaster any reason to think otherwise. “I care for Madeleine. Not as much as I care for you, I realise that now, but I still care for her. I ran away with her because it was _easy_. She was- she’s like you, but she doesn’t have our history. The last time I was in a relationship, it all went to hell, and - and I was scared of it happening again, loving someone so deeply their leaving broke me. She’s just like you: smart and lovely, but without the threat of our job. I _want _that, Q. I want to be able to wake up to someone without worrying they’d die when I turn my back just for a second. You and I, our jobs are dangerous. I know you love being Quartermaster and will never quit, and I will never ask that of you. She wanted a normal life without guns and violence. She was _safe_, far removed from it all, and that was why I ran away.”

James reached over and curled his fingers over Q’s hand. Q was studying him intently, his face unreadable. “I had our life planned out neatly in my head. I’ll be teaching people self-defense, she’ll be fixing them up. I’ll be the one who cooks dinner when she comes home, and we’ll enjoy it before tumbling into bed. We’ll eat out every Friday night and weekends, adopt a pet from the shelter - ”

“You’re describing what you had with me,” Q whispered sadly.

“I know.” James squeezed Q’s hand. He thought back to the night when Q told him his hands were his favourite part of his body, and wondered if they could ever return to moments like that. “I thought that with her, I wouldn’t have to worry about someone killing her, and that we’ll be like that for the rest of our lives. I thought we would be safe and happy.”

“But you weren’t. You were attacked.” Q had started squeezing James’ hand back.

“Yes. God, was I wrong. In hindsight, it was ridiculous and stupid of me - I have enemies, after all, and there were still the remains of SPECTRE to consider. Madeleine is vulnerable - she has none of your training and experience and the MI6 guards M has following you around. SPECTRE kidnapped her to get to me. I managed to get her back before they hurt her, but she wouldn’t _look_ at me when I drove her home. When we got out of the car, she turned to me and said ‘James, I’m sorry, but this is a mistake. I want a life free of bullets, not a life of dodging them. I need to leave’ and that was that.” James took a sip of wine to wet his dry throat. He wasn’t sure if the dryness came from nervousness or from speaking.

“And you returned to MI6, because you don’t know what else to do.”

“No. I returned to _you,_ because whenever everything goes to shit, you’re always there for me. I was just too blind to see it, always taking you for granted and taking advantage of your feelings for me. I went back and realised just how incredibly perfect you are, and I wanted you. I knew I hurt you badly, but I can see from the way you look at me you were still attached. I tried to woo you properly this time, not any of that dancing around our feelings we did before, to show you I’m serious about this, but you wouldn’t respond for two months. And now you called me here, but you don’t want me.”

Q swallowed. “I was hurt, when you left without looking back, and then seven months later you returned, expecting everything to be the same. Things can’t go back to the way they were, James. I thought I managed to deal with my feelings successfully by burying myself in work, but I realised as soon as you came back I was just running away from properly moving on. You were an important part of my life, James - we’ve worked together for three years, been friends with benefits for almost as long. I thought we had something. But then you took off with a _stranger_. What was I supposed to think of that?”

Q looked away from James, but not before James saw the glint of anger and sadness in his eyes. Q pulled his hand away from James’ grip. Taking a deep breath to collect himself, Q continued on.

“I thought you didn’t value me at all. After all, you left me for a woman you knew for less than a week. I know it sounds cliche and ridiculous, but do you know the blow it gave to my self-esteem?”

“No, it doesn’t. Never denigrate your feelings, Q.”

Q shook his head. “As I was saying, I started doubting myself. I wondered if there was something about me you hate that you’d toss me away for a stranger. I wondered if maybe that was why you never formalised anything for three years, despite practically living at my flat by then. Then I thought maybe you just see me as an easy lay: nothing more, nothing less. And that one hurt the most.”

There was a tremor in Q’s voice now. “Three years of my life, all of them only a bit of fun on your part, but something precious to me. We never actually sat each other down and promised anything, but I thought we had an understanding. You were well within your rights to leave when we never actually communicated what we were to each other, but it still hurt.”

“Q, when someone has been practically living together with someone else, decency means telling that person when they felt things weren’t working out anymore.”

“Are you insulting yourself?”

James shrugged. “I’m very self-aware.”

“Except when it comes to matters of the heart.”

“Yes, except for that.”

They sat in silence for several moments. Q worked his jaw, obviously preparing himself for his next words.

“Did you ever love me?” Q asked. “Not just liking me, James - did you ever love me?”

“Yes,” James breathed out. “Never doubt that, Q. I love you then and I love you now.”

Q was quiet again. “You know, I dreamt of you saying that,” he whispered. “But in my fantasies, you actually _meant _it. You said it yourself, remember? 'An agent’s word means nothing'.”

James remembered it. He’d been undercover for a month, charming information out of the wife of a drug kingpin in Mexico who had wanted to expand his business into the UK. He’d made the woman believe he had romantic feelings for her, but when he’d taken down her husband he went back to England without another word. He’d come to Q then, wishing to get rid of the aftertaste of the mission. The welcome back sex had been amazing. As they had almost gone to sleep, a much more uninhibited Q had asked “How do you do that? Going around saying things you don’t mean to people you don’t care about, and then haring off without looking back?”

He’d replied “An agent’s word means nothing, Quartermaster. I’ve said too many ‘I love yous’ to ever mean it anymore. At any rate, actions always mean more than words.” He had smiled at Q’s softness then, thinking him far too kind for espionage. He pulled Q under him, blanketing his thinner frame with his own bulk. And hadn’t that been proof that Q meant more to him than anyone else in the world, that he put Q’s life above his own when he wasn’t ordered to by a mission brief?

“I - I took it to mean that I should never listen to what you say, and look at what you do. And I did,” Q blurted out. “I looked at you cooking me meals and making me tea and feeding the cats. I looked at the way your clothes fill my closet. I looked at the way you sprawl on my sofa and watch movies with me. I looked at the way you dote on the cats. And most of all, I looked at your eyes.”

Q wrung his hands together. “You said you can see from the way I look at you I still have feelings for you. Well, I did the same. You looked at me like I was something precious and fragile. I thought it all meant something, James. But you left. I couldn’t trust your words, I couldn’t trust your actions. What else is there? I want to be with you again. I want it more than anything in the world. Believe me, I do. But I can’t _rely on you_ to be there when I need you most.”

“What if when you see another pretty face, another ‘safe’ person, you leave me again? Even if we get back together, it will always be in the back of my mind. After all, I hadn’t been enough for you the first time round. What’s stopping you from leaving me again? So - so, we can’t go back to the way we were. Maybe if I was a different person, it all wouldn’t matter; I can trust you again and we’d be drinking champagne right now after having a wonderful shag. But I’ve lost my trust in you and the only thing we can do is move forward.”

“Is there anything I can do to - ” James began, but was cut off by Q shaking his head rapidly.

“Don’t you even start. There’s nothing you can say or do to convince me, James. Your promises don’t mean a tinker’s damn; you said so yourself. And you’ve shown me your actions don’t matter. I love you, but I need to move on. I’ve accepted your colleague Amos’s invitation to dinner.”

James froze. “I - when did he ask?” Amos Hawkes was a fellow trainer and a former agent. He’d been recruited after he became an air commodore in the RAF. He’d been slated for a promotion to 00 status ten years ago when an enemy agent shot his knee. Even though he healed, his knee joint wouldn’t be able to take the strain of field operations and he had been retired. He chose to teach potential agents so he could still help his country.

“Two days ago.” Q looked James in the eye. “I trust that this will not affect your working relationship with him.”

“It won’t, Q. I’m a professional, after all.” He wasn’t going to do anything to Hawkes, even though the thought of him being near Q made him want to stab the other man.

“Good.” Q took a deep breath and stood up. James followed his lead. “It’s getting late. Do you want me to call you an Uber? You’ve been drinking, after all.”

“That won’t be necessary. I can drive home perfectly well. There’s no need to show me out. Have a good evening, Quartermaster.” James started walking away.

“James, hold on.” James paused at the doorway to Q’s dining room. He looked back and saw the young Quartermaster chewing his lip.

“I know this is too much to ask, but one day, do you think we can be friends again?” Q sounded so young and vulnerable. James wanted to pull him into his arms, but he knew he wouldn’t be welcomed.

“I’m sure we will, Q. It might take years, but we will be alright again.”

“I’m glad to hear that. Good night, James.”

“Good night, Q.” James left Q’s house, his heart heavy but his steps light.


End file.
